Tag Archives: Kevin McIntyre

Powelson leaves FERC with a split board as Sabal Trail loses legal cases 2018-07-02

Just one day before FERC admitted Sierra Club won in D.C. District Court, and a week after Sabal Trail Sabal Trail lost a jury trial in the U.S. Middle District of Georgia in Valdosta, something else at FERC put pause to further pipeline and LNG export rubberstamps.

Ellen M. Gilmer, Rod Kuckro and Sam Mintz, E&& News, 2 July 2018, Powelson’s departure means fallout for pipelines, policies,

Robert F. Powelson by FERC
Photo: FERC, of Robert F. Powelson, via E&E News

Robert Powelson’s decision to exit the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission less than a year into his term could leave natural gas pipeline developers in the lurch and policy critics scrambling for how to approach the commission’s coming 2-2 partisan split.

That’s the consensus among Continue reading →

Senate confirmed 2 FERC nominees with no discussion 2017-08-03

The Senate took less than two minutes to confirm Neil Chatterjee and Robert F. Powelson as FERC Commissioners, taking it up even earlier than we suspected. The only voice heard voting was Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, the Chair of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee that had forwarded their names. It’s not clear any other Senators were even in the room; certainly none spoke up at any point. She praised the new Commissioners and added that they would “help facilitate the buildout of an aging infrastructure and the add-on of new infrastructure”, which of course means more pipeline boondoggles when the country and the world need to get on with sun and wind power.

Reading the nominations

Worse, there are not one but two more FERC nominees in the pipeline, including a proposed Chair very friendly with pipelines and fossil fuels.

CSPAN, Senate Session, August 3, 2017, Continue reading →